Hence as a sculptor, the fame and excellence of this artist have been exaggerated. His works are far from numerous, and even of these few are finished. His undertakings were gigantic—his activity indomitable —his daring boundless, but impatience of slowly pro gressive labour, or fastidiousness of fancy, formed striking distinctions in his intellectual temperament. In these works, scattered throughout Italy, and found even in France, two styles have been supposed to be discovered; or at least in his earlier years their author is presumed to have followed a distinct set of princi ples from those which guided his maturer judgment. A gradual departure, it is said, may be traced from the simple and the natural towards the exaggerated; and two classes of his sculptures have been made ac cordingly—a position thus illustrated by a h. arned and elegant writer on the arts. Una donna che accos tomarsi giovinetta a lisciarsi le guaeie df minio non passano mole' mini chescnza avvederscne lc pare d'esscre sparata sc non mostrarsi colorita come u,ta maschcra scenica. That diversity of style is to be detected, we admit; but after a careful examination of every origi nal, except two unfinished statues, said to be in France, we are inclined to discredit the existence of any regular progression. The Pietzl, or Virgin and dead Sat N lour, is at once the last, the most finished, and the least exaggerated group of the author; and so far from being insensible of the peculiar character istics of his style, he lamented them, and predicted at the close of life the fall which he had thus prepared for the art.
The works of Michael Angelo are now divided be tween Florence and Rome. In sculpture, each con tains a master-piece; the tombs of the Medici in the former, and the unfinished sepulchre of Julius in the latter city. To this belongs the Moses—a record of genius isolated and rendered unavailing in art by the peculiar nature of its own especial sublimity. But without entering minutely into description. we shall state generally the impress left on the mind, and the influence exerted upon the arts by the genius of this extraordinary man.
The sculpture of Michael Angelo discovers much that is derived from a liberal and enlightened study of sublime and graceful nature; but still more of those qualities which arise from the peculiarities of an in dividual, though rich and powerful imagination. llis studies rarely exhibit the simplicity and repose essen tial to the character of an art—grave, dignified, or even austere, and possessing means comparatively limited and uniform. But forced and constrained at titude, exaggerated proportions, unnatural expression, are redeemed by a force, an energy, an enthusiasm elsewhere unfelt, which give to every composition a vitality and power resembling rather the effect of in spiration than of reiterated and laborious effort. Neither with nature nor with the antique can his works be rightly compared. They stand isolated by a peculiar sublimity of conception, the matchless monuments of a daring spirit forcing present admira tion in despite of calmer judgment. The first im pressions are thus irresistibly powerful, but they are those of surprise, of astonishment, not of delight or of sympathy. The fascination is thus quickly dis In sculpture, such superiority could not be attain ed; here great excellence had already been achieved, in some respects little remained to he added, nor are the additions always improvements. But the style of the fifteenth century, exquisite in unaffected sim plicity, was not adapted to please in the succeeding age, and under a system of refinement,when the forci ble and the imaginative were admired in preference to the simple and the true. The works of Buonaroti at first created and subsequently fostered this taste. Ilis sculptures were erected into a standard, accord ing to which earlier masters were to be estimated. and by which future artists were to direct their aspir ings. The past thus appeared tame and lifeless,
while contemporaries and successors constrained to become imitators, successively remained inferiors, where laws were thus received from the prestiges of an individual mind. The character of that mind, indeed, elevated sculpture; hut round a false, though gorgeous and imposing art, genius swept a magic circle, within pelted, the mind reluctantly yielding to an influence, originating solely in the imagination, and in which the sensibility has no portion.
The ideal of Alichael Angelo indeed, is constituted entirely of the imaginative. Ills sublimity is sought too exclusively in the vehement and the marvellous. His design, expression, forms, and attitudes, have little communion with nature, at least with nature in her solemn majesty—her dignified repose—her un pretending simplicity, or in those her milder beauties, which sentiment and feeling appreciate. The perfec tion of art, as displayed in the works before us, ap pears to have been placed in embodying the wildest, the most gloomy, the severest, and most awful ima ginings or the mind, under shapes the most mascu line and energetic; and in positions the most difficult or uncommon. Both in conception and in execution Buonaroti has created a style adapted to display his own powers, but which could be supported by these alone. With him the arts were not imitative, hut creative. Compared with themselves; his productions are astonishing evidences of human power; tried by natu•e's rules, they are ever remote from reality, not seldom irregular and fantastical. Every thought ex hibits the impress of a mind delighting in the grand and the wonderful—eager in the pursuit of untried modes of existence, and conscious of powers to exe cute the most daring conceptions. This gives to his ideal more of the vague, but soul stirring enthusiasm which belongs to poetry, than of that sober inspira tion and steady imagery which direct the judgment and guide the practice of the sculptor. his execu tion participates largely in this unquiet and aspiring character of composition. It is rapid and fervent, but inaccurate in minor details, and too prominent in general effect. Intelligence in the naked, breadth of 'touch, boldness of manner, give the very effect of life and movement; but to a display of science, simplicity, and even truth, have been sacrificed. Difficulties seem to have been courted in order to be surmounted with address; the attitudes are consequently the most remote from such as would voluntarily be assumed, or graceful design select; they are in a high degree con strained, and from an undue exhibition of knowledge —the pedantry of art in rendering them, the forms have more the appearance of anatomical studies than the warm full figures of life. The general character of this style then is every thing but natural; art stands forth boldly prominent, challenging admiration, not as a means perfect as it eludes regard, but as a final end, claiming in itself a distinct and paramount ex cellence, independent of nature or of imitation, and exhibiting its creations as evidence of separate origin, "Like life, but not like mortal life to view." The death of Michael Angelo, in 1564, created a blank in the history of art, which never has and never can be filled; but in the principles of the art itself, in those principles which he himself had introduced, the event caused no change, save that their ministration passed into feebler hands. During his lifetime, the sculptors of this era, however various in talent, may be classed as his disciples; for though many approach. and one or two even excel in some quality, yet they generally inferior, while the character and manner of their productions but reflect the style he had in vented. Still, among his contemporaries, we are to distinguish between imitators merely, and pupils, pro perly so termed.